For the last 12 years, Assaulted Fish has been entertaining audiences of all sizes, shapes, colours and orientations with their tightly crafted comedy sketches that range from well-observed character studies to sharp social commentary to surreal slapstick. They have appeared in various comedy festivals, cultural venues and coffee shops including multiple trips to the CanWest Comedy Festival and SketchFest Seattle and more recently performing sold-out shows at the 2013 Vancouver Fringe Festival and the 2014 Vancouver Sketch Comedy Festival. Off duty they are known as Diana Bang (“The Interview”), Marlene Dong, Kuan Foo and Nelson Wong (“American Mary”).

Thank you again Powell Street Festival for another year of inviting us out to play. Incredible kudos must be given to Kristen Lambertson and her administrative team who managed to relocate almost the entire festival at very short notice. Also what would the festival be without all of the other fabulous staff and volunteers who do everything from building the venues to making the sure the recyclables are correctly separated. We cannot stress enough how much we love to be a part of one of the few festivals that truly reflects the community and the people who participate.

Big thanks again to Jamie Burns at the FireHall Arts Centre for his technical wizardry and his previously unknown baking skills; to our director Dawn Milman, who wrung amazing performances out of us and our indefatigable stage manager Ann Chow, always cool under pressure (she’s the woman in the corner quietly solving your Rubik’s Cube).

Finally of course, thank you to our fans, old and new. We were a bit nervous debuting all of those brand new sketches but your warm reception and ready laughter soon took care of that. Without you we would just be a bunch of strangely-dressed people emoting into an empty theatre.

Find out on Saturday, August 2 when Assaulted Fish performs its annual 30-minute free show at the Powell Street Festival. It’s our 11th year participating in this terrific community festival. We’re really excited to debut our brand new sketches, and if you haven’t had a chance to see our newest members strut their stuff, you don’t want to miss this show.